It has become quite a common routine for people to open a whole slew of social network sites upon opening a browser in one's computer. My browser, Firefox of course, opens up about a half dozen sites when I start my online routine. There usually is no problem in doing this, but the problem lies in updating all of them with as little time in between when doing so. Thankfully, there are a number of web apps or services that help me update all of my social networks in one go. Also, the social networks themselves are adding features that let you update other social networks when posting updates. When left unchecked, it can cause feedback, much like a microphone that's too close to a speaker. It gets loud. Too loud. Twitter, by itself, does not post updates to other social networks, like Facebook, MySpace, Plurk, etc. Facebook, by itself, also does the same thing. The difference between the two is that Facebook imports "stories" from other sites, such as blog feeds, Google Reader, StumbleUpon, etc, and shows it in the home page. Facebook is noisy as it is, with updates from friends that answered quizzes, joined groups, became fans, etc. Twitter is noisy when the people you follow update their statuses by the minute, which is sometimes the case. I don't mind the noise. Not at all. Other social networks choose to do something different. Take, for example, Friendfeed. Although it functions like Twitter BUT with real-time updates, it also aggregates friends' feeds from other social networks. So if a friend of mine is a Friendfeed user and I follow them on Friendfeed, I get their status updates to Friendfeed and any social network they have decided to add to their feed, like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. Friendfeed is great as it tries to be the one-stop-shop to check friends' updates and start-slash-continue discussions by posting comments. The problem with Friendfeed is that it can't post an update to other social networks, other than Twitter, at the same time. Ping.fm solves this dilemma by providing a service that updates a number of social networks. So in one posting, I can update my status in all the social networks I belong to. It was great, at first. However, whenever I check my Friendfeed, it displays my Ping.fm-based update several times because the same message was posted to a number of social networks I added. It may not be a problem, nor would anyone care, but it was me who was annoyed by multiple instances of the same message. I decided to remove the social networks from Friendfeed that I update simultaneously through Ping.fm. So before, when I update my status, my Friendfeed displays the same message that I posted in Twitter, Facebook, and Plurk. Now, it just displays the update I posted to Friendfeed. This way, I don't annoy my followers with a number of mirrored posts. The only difference in those mirrored posts is where it was posted. There are desktop clients, whether AIR-based or otherwise, that let users post messages simultaneously to multiple social networks. Twhirl, an AIR-based desktop application, posts primarily to Twitter, but has extended its coverage by using Ping.fm's service, posting tweets to other social networks. However, I still use Ping.fm's service to update my social networks instead of Twhirl, mainly because I can't use Twhirl on other computers or on my phone. And then, there's Plurk. Although the concept is similar to Twitter, the execution is very different. And recently, they have decided to add a feature where a plurk is also posted on Twitter and Facebook, among others. Since I was using Ping.fm already, I saw no reason to use this feature. It only made sense that I stick to one service, or method of updating my status, to prevent confusion and me annoying the hell out of everybody else. If only Friendfeed's aggregation features and Ping.fm's updating service merge into one, with a desktop client to boot, it would make updating and keeping tabs on multiple social networks a whole lot easier. That would, in my very humble opinion, take the social network scene to a whole new level.

It's still a snorefest as the limelight is shifted to other news, but Microsoft's bid is still up in the air as News Corp., the owners of MySpace, is joining Microsoft in its bid for Yahoo!. However, Yahoo! thinks it can avoid the acquisition bullet by merging with AOL. AOL, meanwhile, has its problems of its own as Time Warner is thinking of selling it off. Anyway, Yahoo! also thinks that making itself a company not worth being acquired (i.e. a company losing money) is a good thing and hopefully make Microsoft retract their offer. Basically, Yahoo! wants more money from Microsoft, and if Microsoft can't or won't increase the bid, Yahoo! won't sell. To further prove to Microsoft that they should not pursue the bid, Yahoo! "partners" with Google in which Google will handle the ads shown on 3% of Yahoo!'s search results page. And this is something that made Microsoft cry foul. Yahoo! is basically telling the world that they can no longer compete with Google and is throwing the towel. Google, therefore gets the monopoly on the search advertising wars. Of course, this is unacceptable. Here's my theory on what will happen. Microsoft teams up with News Corp. to give Yahoo! what they want: more money. This is AFTER Yahoo! merges with AOL. Google will be left alone to their own devices. So it's going to be Microsoft/MySpace/Yahoo!/AOL against Google. Microsoft will get Yahoo!, with or without News Corp. but before Yahoo! merges with AOL. If Yahoo! merges with AOL, Microsoft will have no choice but to give Yahoo! more money. And they can definitely do that by getting News Corp.'s money to up the offer. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch mentions something about the health of the Internet. I believe him. Whatever happens, expect layoffs in the thousands. That is, if the acquisition pushes through. If Microsoft decides to back out of the offer, Yahoo! will then continue to do what it is doing. And that would be losing money. And at this rate, Yahoo! will be in the deadpool by next year. Personally, I hope Yahoo! finds an angel before it's too late.

Is there such a thing as too many social network memberships? MySpace lets you add friends and share your interests. Facebook, Friendster, and Multiply, among others, do this as well. They integrate games and various applications to make the experience more fun. Then there's LinkedIn where members share professional information with friends. Then you have StumbleUpon that lets you share sites that you like with your friends and other members. And then there's social network sites for news like Digg, Reddit, and Mixx that allow you to share news sites with others. Twitter comes in to provide their members with a medium to either amuse or annoy their followers. People you follow would sometimes display flashes of brilliance in 140 characters or less, but most of the time, it's just trivia.

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MySpace steps up to the plate with its answer to Facebook's fbFund dubbed Slingshot Labs. Users win.

Anne Zelenka of GigaOM posted an article about WordPress becoming the next social networking profile, which basically makes me think about my blog and it becoming a social network. The article talks about blogs in general, and WordPress as the platform in particular, as a social network. Although it wasn't mentioned in the article, I'm assuming that they were referring to the WordPress application and not the WordPress.com "free blog" site. Anne did a good job in pointing out the trend that is currently happening in social networking circles.

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